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All travel out of Auckland Airport looks likely to be disrupted for several days after a digger lifting swamp kauri on a farm at Ruakaka, south of Whangarei, sliced through the airport's sole supply of jet fuel from the Marsden Point refinery.

Airport spokesman Simon Lambourne said 23 flights have been cancelled in the past 24 hours.

NZ Refining spokesman Greg McNeill said the pipeline was likely to be shut down for several days, with two engineers flying in from Canada tomorrow.

Petrol and diesel can be trucked into Auckland by tanker, but the airport depends entirely on the pipeline and is now running out of stored supplies of aviation fuel.

Passengers on an Emirates flight to Dubai this afternoon were told this morning that the flight has been diverted via Christchurch for refuelling.

Auckland Airport's departure board shows that flights to Sydney at 1.10pm, Apia at 4.10pm, Gold Coast at 4.30pm and Melbourne at 6.35pm have been cancelled.

A passenger due to fly to Dubai from Auckland later today received a text message at 1.32am saying "due to a shortage of fuel at Auckland International Airport, your flight will operate from Auckland to Dubai via Christchurch".

"The flight will depart on schedule and will stop en route for refuelling," the text read.

"Have you ever heard of anything so bizarre as an international airport running out of fuel?", the passenger, who did not want to be named, said.

McNeill confirmed that the pipeline was cut by "external damage" but was unable to confirm that a digger was trying to lift a kauri log.